Atgames

So, I was walking around Target the other night, and I couldn’t help but notice one of Atgames‘ many officially-licensed Genesis plug-and-play systems, the Arcade Blast Sonic, was on the shelf. Since I was pretty bored, I picked it up to take a look at it.

That’s when I saw something a little…weird.

Why, I’ve never seen a Sonic the Hedgehog 2 title screen drawn that way on a Sega product–even that shirt which was licensed a few years back didn’t quite have the artwork like that. Wait, could it…? No, of course not.

Then I flipped the box over.

Huh. It’s there again, too! Every other game on the box uses the standard title screen, but this is using that art instead. You know, if I didn’t know any better, I would say that wasn’t official artwork.

Of course, gentle readers, we know better. It’s not.

It’s actually a very old Sonic 2 HD title screen that was replaced, but its legacy lives on in Atgames packaging. Certainly, this isn’t the first time fan works have appeared in official products (the Sonia fanart in All-Stars Racing comes to mind), but it doesn’t make me smile any less each time it happens.

You’ve probably seen one of these knock-off mini-Genesis’ at a Toys-R-Us or mall kiosk at some point in your life. I’m damn sure you ain’t seen some shit like this here. Right here, we’ve got the “Atgames Motion Controlled Mini-Genesis Console,” some sort of Wii/Genesis hybrid, featuring motion controlled games and an SD card slot. It’s also shaped like Sonic’s motherfudgin’ head. Coming in at $35, it might be worth a look, but I’m probably going to make fun of it because it’s an Atgames piece of shit.

Check out its many features (12/15 UPDATE: and a video!) past the jump.